Marvin Minsky
In plain wordsAn American AI pioneer who helped launch the field and MIT's AI laboratory, co-wrote a famous critique of early neural networks, and pictured the mind as a society of many simple parts.
American cognitive scientist and a founder of AI. In 1951, with Dean Edmonds, he built SNARC, one of the first learning machines made from simulated neurons, and his 1954 Princeton doctorate studied neural networks. He co-wrote the proposal for the 1956 Dartmouth workshopDartmouth workshop, prop. n.: A summer meeting of scientists at Dartmouth College in 1956, planned in a 1955 funding proposal that first used the phrase 'artificial intelligence'. Most histories treat it as the moment AI became a research field of its own., co-founded the MIT AI Project with John McCarthyJohn McCarthy, prop. n.: The American computer scientist who coined the term 'artificial intelligence', invented the Lisp programming language and championed formal logic as the route to machine common sense. and led what became the MIT AI Laboratory. His survey 'Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence' (1961) set out the field's early agenda. 'PerceptronsPerceptrons (book), prop. n.: A 1969 book by Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert proving that simple one-layer neural networks cannot learn certain patterns. It is widely blamed for a decade-long slump in neural-network research.' (1969), written with Seymour Papert, proved limits of single-layer perceptronsperceptron, n.: One of the first learning machines: a single artificial neuron that sorts inputs into two groups by drawing a straight dividing line, nudging its weights whenever it guesses wrong. and is often blamed for diverting funding from neural-network research. He introduced framesframe, n.: In classic AI, a ready-made template for a familiar kind of thing or event, such as a kitchen or a job interview, with blanks to fill in and sensible default values. for knowledge representationknowledge representation, n.: The study of how to record knowledge about objects, categories, rules and events in a precise format, so that a program can reason with it and reach conclusions nobody typed in. (1974) and argued in 'The Society of Mind' (1986) that intelligence emerges from the interaction of many simple, mindless processes. Turing AwardTuring Award, prop. n.: Nicknamed the 'Nobel Prize of computing', the top honor in computer science, awarded each year since 1966 by the Association for Computing Machinery. Several AI pioneers have received it. 1969; Japan Prize 1990.
Related
- Dartmouth workshopDartmouth workshop, prop. n.: A summer meeting of scientists at Dartmouth College in 1956, planned in a 1955 funding proposal that first used the phrase 'artificial intelligence'. Most histories treat it as the moment AI became a research field of its own.
- Perceptrons (book)Perceptrons (book), prop. n.: A 1969 book by Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert proving that simple one-layer neural networks cannot learn certain patterns. It is widely blamed for a decade-long slump in neural-network research.
- frameframe, n.: In classic AI, a ready-made template for a familiar kind of thing or event, such as a kitchen or a job interview, with blanks to fill in and sensible default values.
- symbolic AIsymbolic AI, n.: An approach to AI that writes knowledge down as human-readable symbols and rules, such as 'every bird has wings', and reasons by manipulating them step by step instead of learning patterns from data.
- neats and scruffiesneats and scruffies, phr.: A joking split of AI researchers into 'neats', who want clean mathematical theories that can be proved correct, and 'scruffies', who build messy collections of tricks that simply work.
- John McCarthyJohn McCarthy, prop. n.: The American computer scientist who coined the term 'artificial intelligence', invented the Lisp programming language and championed formal logic as the route to machine common sense.
- Frank RosenblattFrank Rosenblatt, prop. n.: An American psychologist who invented the perceptron, the first neural network that learned from examples, and built a machine that learned to recognize simple images.
Sources
- Minsky, M. (1961). Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence. Proceedings of the IRE 49(1): 8–30.
- Minsky, M. & Papert, S. (1969). Perceptrons: An Introduction to Computational Geometry. MIT Press.
- Minsky, M. (1974). A Framework for Representing Knowledge. MIT AI Laboratory Memo 306.
Mentioned in
AI winterAI winter, n.: A slump in which disappointment over AI's unmet promises leads governments and companies to pull back money and attention. Historians count two big ones: one in the 1970s and one starting in the late 1980s., Dartmouth workshopDartmouth workshop, prop. n.: A summer meeting of scientists at Dartmouth College in 1956, planned in a 1955 funding proposal that first used the phrase 'artificial intelligence'. Most histories treat it as the moment AI became a research field of its own., frameframe, n.: In classic AI, a ready-made template for a familiar kind of thing or event, such as a kitchen or a job interview, with blanks to fill in and sensible default values., Frank RosenblattFrank Rosenblatt, prop. n.: An American psychologist who invented the perceptron, the first neural network that learned from examples, and built a machine that learned to recognize simple images., HAL 9000HAL 9000, prop. n.: The calm-voiced spaceship computer in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey that turns against its crew; still the best-known picture of a machine putting its goals ahead of human lives., John McCarthyJohn McCarthy, prop. n.: The American computer scientist who coined the term 'artificial intelligence', invented the Lisp programming language and championed formal logic as the route to machine common sense., Perceptrons (book)Perceptrons (book), prop. n.: A 1969 book by Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert proving that simple one-layer neural networks cannot learn certain patterns. It is widely blamed for a decade-long slump in neural-network research., The Society of MindThe Society of Mind, prop. n.: AI pioneer Marvin Minsky's 1986 book arguing that intelligence comes from huge numbers of tiny, simple processes working together, no one of which is smart by itself., Turing AwardTuring Award, prop. n.: Nicknamed the 'Nobel Prize of computing', the top honor in computer science, awarded each year since 1966 by the Association for Computing Machinery. Several AI pioneers have received it., J. C. R. LickliderJ. C. R. Licklider, prop. n.: An American psychologist who envisioned people and computers working in close partnership, and whose US government funding built early AI research and the precursor of the internet., microworldmicroworld, n.: A small, deliberately simplified artificial setting, such as a table of toy blocks, in which an AI program can be tested in full detail before anyone tries it in the messy real world., MIT AI LabMIT AI Lab, prop. n.: The artificial intelligence laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded in 1959 and one of the birthplaces of AI and hacker culture; it is now part of MIT's computer science lab, CSAIL., Seymour PapertSeymour Papert, prop. n.: A South African-born mathematician who co-wrote 'Perceptrons', a critique of early neural networks, with Marvin Minsky, and invented the children's programming language Logo.